“Can We Be Good Without God?” Yes, But It Makes No Sense.

“Hello there. I am an atheist, and I actually enjoy following your page. I do not agree with almost anything you post, but, it’s nice to see you, and your followers opinion. One question, how is it that religious people say that one can’t be moral without religion or God? Here in Denmark we aren’t very religious, but somehow our country is taking care of our week, elderly and students. Is that not being kind to your neighbour?”

-Christian

Hi, Christian. Great question. Allow me the space to answer.

Firstly, it is incorrect for religious people to say that atheists can’t be moral without religion. Having written on apologetics for the last few years, I observe that most intellectual theists do not actually argue this line, and for good reason.

The real contention, however, concerns moral ontology. In other words, what is the nature of morality? Objective morality, for instance, says that certain behaviours are either right or wrong. It is wrong to rape and murder people. It is right to tell the truth and to act kindly and compassionately to others. This type of morality is thus not a matter of personal preference but that is rather true and binding independent of one’s view of them, or whether or not one chooses to follow them. Philosopher William Lane Craig makes an analogy to Nazi annexation of the world (1). Basically, objective morality would still say that murder & genocide is evil even if the Nazis, who viewed the the Holocaust as something good, were successful and managed to not only take over the entire world, but also brainwash the entire world into believing what they did was morally good. Objective morality isn’t affected by how many people view something over and above something else.

As I will briefly argue, the problem for the atheist is that objective morality does not exist on his/her worldview. Thus, for the atheist like yourself, Chris, you do not have a basis from which to make both moral claims and arguments, though atheists make them all of the time. Even you seem to affirm this saying that in Denmark many atheists are doing morally good things such as taking care of the old, sickly and the future generation of students. The reason for this problem is because your worldview cuts off any transcendent standard from which one is able to both judge moral and make moral claims. Without God, or some transcendent moral law giver, there can be no transcendent moral standard. The atheist philosopher Richard Taylor was honest enough to observe this saying that “The concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone” (2).

Objective morality therefore does not, and cannot, exist on atheism, as most atheist philosophers will affirm. Philosopher Julian Baggini says that “If there is no single moral authority [i.e. if there is no God, then] we have to in some sense ‘create’ values for ourselves… that means that moral claims are not true or false in the same way as factual claims are… moral claims are judgments [that] it is always possible for someone to disagree with… without saying something that is factually false… you may disagree with me but you cannot say I have made a factual error” (3).

What you are left with is thus moral subjectivism. It is only your personal opinion, versus the opinion of another, that certain acts are either morally evil or good. For example, you believe that taking care of the elderly is a moral good, but some cultures have been known to practice senicide, the deliberate killing of the elderly for whatever reason they see fit. Your view that senicide is morally evil cannot be said to be superior to the view of any culture that condones and practices it. After all, it is merely a subjective preference on your part no different to the fact that you might like vanilla ice cream while I favour the strawberry kind. According to prominent atheist philosopher Michael Ruse that you believe senicide is morally evil is an “illusion fobbed” off on to you as a result of sociobiological conditioning (4).

The obvious issue here is that atheists, while affirming what I have just explained, do not and cannot live consistently with this view. Take Richard Dawkins, for example. In his book River Out of Eden we have his commonly referred to quote that “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference” (5). There is much one could bully Dawkins on here, but obviously he believes that the words “good” and “evil” are meaningless in the objective sense. Atheism doesn’t allow for it. But Dawkins, in defiance of this belief, has made a career of accusing religions, religious faith, and many religious believers of being evil, and opposed to reason, science, and intellectual progress. It isn’t very hard to observe the obvious inconsistencies within this view, and so is the story of just about every atheist who cannot live consistently with his atheism.

But this doesn’t entail that you as an atheist, Chris, cannot act morally. You, like many other atheists, do in fact act morally, and perhaps more so than many of us religious people. Rather, the problem is that you can’t live consistently with your worldview, and I’d urge you to consider alternatives.

Take the theistic view for example. Theists believe that objective morality is rooted in God because God’s own perfect nature provides the transcendent standard against which we can judge all actions and decisions. So, it makes sense for theists to argue that senicide is a moral evil, and that looking after and taking care of the elderly is an objective good. The theist’s worldview thus can make sense of our awareness of morality, namely that some things are objective good as opposed to evil, or vice versa. Ultimately we want to adopt a view that makes sense, and I’d like to strongly and lovingly suggest to you, Chris, that your atheism doesn’t.

16 responses to ““Can We Be Good Without God?” Yes, But It Makes No Sense.”

Here’s the truth: you DO NOT need Christianity to have a working moral or ethical framework, but you DO need some idea of God. Even if it’s the sort of remote uninterested God of Aristotle, or the more subtle God of Plato, or even another religion like Zoroastrianism or even some form of Hinduism–you need SOME idea of God, something outside your own faculties, to do it.

Christians sometimes make the mistake of leaping to “therefore read the Bible and do that” as their response. That’s irresponsible in a lot of ways, because there are so many conflicting schools on Biblical interpretation. But there ARE good ethical systems BASED on the Bible. I’m a fan of Thomist Natural Law. There are others.

But no one in history has put together a solid and coherent ethical or moral framework without invoking some idea of God. It can’t be done, it appears.

It is a necessary qualification if one wishes to hold to objective morality. If we don’t, we need to explain our moral experience that tells us some acts are morally evil as opposed to good. Transcendence is necessary because without it we are left we subjectivism, as I explained. Transcendence provides the standard that would apply to all people independent of what people think. On subjectivism nothing is in of itself morally good or evil. Morality is then just opinion.

Theists are apt to devise their own individual subjective idea of God. Even within congregations each individual has a subjective view of God that may conflict with the person in the pew next to him. Certainly, there are wide ranging differences within faith traditions and across different religious groups. One can easily show that the character of the God one believes in is wholly subjective for each individual. This being so, how does one determine this “objective morality?” Isn’t their personal interpretation of a “transcendent” morality also “just their opinion”? Further, if as you say, “Without God, or some transcendent moral law giver, there can be no transcendent moral standard,” and any deity can serve that purpose as you infer and Max in his reply above expands on, doesn’t that mean that whatever one believes is acceptable and thus is entirely, utterly subjective? If that is your argument, why invoke a deity at all?

That there exists an objective moral standard and that there also exist many interpretations or approximations of that moral standard is self-evident and in no way undermines the assertion that there exists an objective moral standard, whether or not we can fully and completely define and agree on it. Without a God, there is no way to claim that an objective moral standard exists. That human beings disagree about what that moral standard is, is beside the point in this case.

Thank you, Barry, for your response. I agree with you that it is self-evident that there are “many interpretations or approximations” of an objective moral standard. However, that an actual objective morality exists is by no means self-evident since any interpretation or approximation is categorically subjective. What is self-evident is that theists and non-theists alike develop and operate within their personal moral framework in exactly the same way. “That human beings disagree about what [an objective] moral standard is…” is precisely the point – it is, as you perhaps inadvertently illustrated, essentially what James Bishop characterizes as, “just an opinion.” To claim that an objective morality exists, whether or not it actually does, is what is beside the point since merely making the claim is functionally irrelevant for all practical purposes. If the best we and our fellow human beings can hope to do is to attempt to divine 😉 it for ourselves, that would be subjectivism, right?

Nonsense, our preferences do not determine good or evil, because we don’t know the circumstances of everything and every intent a person has, because we don’t know everyone’s thoughts. But God does, so knows best how to get someones attention to recognize their faults according to what we’ve done. And many people have different ideas about what is right and wrong, or if morality is an illusion or not. There’s no way to test and experiment with a persons intentions to determine empirically if it’s the correct standard for morality. Secular morality is contradictory.

This is in response to Eric Breaux. Thank you, Eric for commenting on this subject. Please correct me if I’m wrong, I understand you to be agreeing with Max Kolbe, James Bishop, Barry, above, and myself that, “…people have different ideas about what is right and wrong”, and that, there is no way to “…determine empirically if it’s the correct standard for morality.” Except that, “…God does, so knows best how to get someone’s attention…”

Max, Mr. Bishop and Barry also suggest that one need not appeal to any specific deity, but that one must hold a belief in a supernaturally powerful god. This belief can be in any generic deity, not necessarily the Christian God, in order to impart a necessary ”transcendent” quality to one’s moral framework and thereby provide it legitimacy. Otherwise, one is not able “…to have a working moral or ethical framework…” (Kolbe). To clarify, do you also agree with this assertion?

I don’t think anyone in this thread claimed that our “preferences” determine good or evil. And, I’m not sure why “…the circumstances of everything and every intent a person has,” would be a requirement for determining good or evil. My contention is just that theists and non-theists alike come to understand morality by essentially the same method. As such, there is fundamentally no distinction between a “transcendent” morality and a “regular” or non-theistic based morality.

If you are willing to explain further, I would very much like to understand, if as you say, there is “…no way..to determine empirically if it’s the correct standard for morality,” how you come by the knowledge of this single “correct standard.” And, could you be more specific about why, “[s]ecular morality is contradictory.” Contradictory to what and how so?

James Bishop

Hi. I am James. I live in South Africa where I am currently studying theology & philosophy, and majoring in psychology (graduate 2018). I graduated in marketing and brand communications majoring in multimedia design (2014). I also obtained TESOL in 2017. Welcome to my blog!